Any picky eaters out there?

If so, please join in this thread! Sometimes we just need to vent. Sometimes we can share something that we tried that made it easier to a) consume that healthy food that we have a major or minor aversion to, or b) cut down on consumption of the "comfort food" that is fattening.

About me - I do struggle with some of the metabolic issues - hypothyroid, and PCOS (though I no longer have ovaries, I was informed that the syndrome persists). I'm a menopausal gal of 51, had a hysterectomy at 46. I'm about 70 lbs. at least above where I want to be.

I also struggle with ADHD which runs in one side of my family (mom's) and there are also people with Aspergers/autism in that side of the family. I've taken some quizzes and think I may be a "borderline aspie" but the label isn't as important as simply to state that I have sensory processing issues for whatever reason. This applies to being easily overstimulated by too much excitement, noise, bright or flashing lights give me a migraine sometimes, and so on.

Food - taste, texture, smell, even appearance - is a sensory minefield. I gravitate toward bland, starchy, fatty, and sweet. Things that soothe the pleasure or comfort centers of my brain. I steer away from things that are a sensory challenge. Sour, bitter, rubbery, slimy, little bits that chew weird (like minced onion), anything pickled, peppers, etc. to name just a few. Fishy tasting fish. The familiar and tried and true is good, the new and strange is suspect.

Exercise sometimes helps me eat better and it helps in other ways so I'm getting started with that.

Okay. Enough from me for now. If you relate to any of this and it presents a challenge to your weight loss and healthy eating efforts, please post!

I too am a very picky eater. I hesitate to try new foods because I am afraid they will taste weird and make me "sick".. My husband is always amazed if I try some new dish at a restaurant. It is like some kind of MIB moment for him! For example, I would love to try eggplant because it looks so pretty, but I am just afraid to take that step. I wish I were more adventurous, but I'm not. I can totally relate!

I can totally relate ! I have issues with color ! this may sound odd but i will not eat white foods with the exception of bread ! i dont know why I've just always been that way..no white potatoes, milk, cauliflower, mayo, vanilla ice cream..i just cant bring myself to eat it.

I wont eat any seafood but that has more to do with the toxicity levels then anything else, i just dont feel any amount of seafood is safe for human consumption anymore.

my newest little quirk has been my refusal to eat anything that doesnt come prepackaged ! i need to see the calorie content in order to know weather or not its okay to eat.

I can be pretty picky, only by taste though. Some psychological aspects too. I'm by no means a vegetarian, and enjoy meats. But red meats 90% of the time aren't appealing. That is a psychological issue, not relating to the animal as I myself am a hunter. But I think the blood freaks me out.

LUCKILY, sweets are a turn off as well as I hate the way they make my teeth feel. I don't want my teeth to feel like they're wearing a sweater. All fuzzy and such. Horrible.

And I too am weird-ed out by white foods. Particularly liquid or soft foods. Yogurt, cottage cheese (ick!), MILK, ice cream (*shudder*).. the list goes on. Sometimes I wish I could get past the cottage cheese thing, but I'm dealing. I just eat flavoured yogurt and almond milk (primarily in a shake).

Absolutely. I'm the picky one of the family, both mine and my partners. So much that I when I'm invited to meals they are prepared different and especially for me so I'll eat it all!!
I dislike vegetables. Their taste is what puts me off, especially onions and how they crunch in the mouth and release flavour. Eww. I've been eating only 4 vege's for dinner and I'm still struggling with lettuce and tomato. I have no idea how I'm going to cope with the winter vege's!

I'm a meat-eater, but I stay clear away from pig meat. I had a bad experience with my dad cooking up ham steaks every week and I dislike the way bacon is so salty. I hate salt too.

I remember one time when I was doing a stocktake which went over 3 nights from 8pm-7am (or 5 if we were on target). The store managers had ordered subway and their large selection of 6-inch subs. I hated them all from their meat fillings to the salads. One of the older ladies actually told me off for being picky I was 23 at the time, but I looked 16-17. (Even now that I'm 28, people still think I'm 20.)

Yes! I am most definitely a picky, finicky eater. I feel guiilty for everything I put my parents through trying to find something that I woud eat because a lot of it was junk. Now I have improved upon my pickiness just by trial and error. I tried a new veggie the other day and now am hooked on it, who would have thought that I would be trying veggies!!

My advice to becoming less picky and finicky eater is to try a food you wouldn't normally try but one that intrigues you. Try to step outside of your comfort zone.

Thanks gals for the great replies! There's a lot we can all relate to each other with regard to pickiness, isn't there!

Some of my pickiness I have overcome - there's what is called "food chaining" where you pick a new food to try that is pretty similar to something you already can eat okay. That has worked for me.

There are some things I can manage to eat for politeness' sake which wasn't always the case - such as salmon if prepared well - but I can only eat enough to fulfill the social need and don't go back for seconds. There are other items that I have to draw the line - peppers for instance, or pickled things. Ick.

I also don't like soups with a lot of vegetables swimming around in unidentifiable chunks - for that matter I don't like much "chunky" anything (unless it involves cookies and chocolate chunks, LOL).

That's interesting that people have an aversion to white foods. I've heard that from other pickies. Most white foods feel more safe to me; I associate the light color with comfort foods. White rice, pasta, and I like cottage cheese which is weird as most picky people don't, but my Mom and I liked it so I never had a problem with it. I used to only like white breads but now I like whole grain breads more than white - but hate rye or pumpernickel, those are just way too strong flavored.

Back to colors of foods - what I hate are colors that are dulled, like the color of overcooked vegetables. And the other day there were tiny flakes of parsley in corn and it freaked me out how neon green they were and to me they were kind of sour and I prefer my corn, well, corny with butter and salt. So I guess not too dull or too bright - at least with veggies and challenging foods.

How does this "food chaining" work? Do you jump in cold turkey or try the new food different ways? Any info would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

The way I did it was basically to "change one variable" at a time. Example - I like burritos with pinto beans. I think I might like them with black beans. So I make one and try it. It can be as easy or as challenging as you like, really. You can vary an ingredient, a texture, a seasoning, try the same food with an added ingredient, lots of possibilities.

It is a term being used now as picky eating is becoming recognized as something adults have not always outgrown. Some propose calling it "Selective Eating Disorder" in the psych diagnostic manual, I don't know if that's official or not.

But "food chaining" is a name of a treatment - you can Google it (and Selective Eating Disorder) to find out how others are doing it. I just improvised it before it had a name!

Hi Rhiko - Love your avatar - looks like one of the kitties at my house and also your bunny rabbit ticker. I have 2 pet bunnies. I may have to get that ticker myself.

I wish you good success with the food chaining! Also, has anyone else mentioned the Sneaky Chef series of books? Here's the website of their author, Missy Lapin: thesneakychef dot com. The basic concept is puree'ing the veggies and incorporating them into foods that kids (and we adult picky eaters who sometimes have the palate of a toddler!) can deal with.

The recipes are great because she has already gone through the trial and error process with her own children as testers! So she knows, for example, just how much cauliflower puree' (seriously!) you can sneak into macaroni and cheese before it's detectable to the taste buds.

A lot of people have mentioned online that they didn't like vegetables until they tasted fresh roasted ones. I have found this to be helpful, although there are some that will remain forever off limits - there is nothing that can be done to make me touch a bell pepper of any type. Part of that is they truly do upset my digestive system. You don't wanna know! TMI!

Moving right along! One other topic of interest to picky eaters - and I'd love anyone's feedback on this:

Does it irritate you as badly as it does me when the advice-givers say to add more spices to foods instead of, say, salt or butter or some other thing that is easy to cope with?! I mean, if I wanted all kinds of intense flavorings, I probably wouldn't be a picky eater in the first place! I can't fathom that illogical reasoning!

Yes, it drives me crazy about the spices! I want to say to people, "Hey, how about if I take something out of your comfort zone and push you straight into it? Would that be okay? No? Then leave me alone!!!!! It took me almost 4 years to add turmeric to chili to make it yummier (and now that I have, I love the stuff!). I'm a southern cook, and to me, if I want more spice or flavor, I would cook with more lard! I don't cook with lard any more, but it is so hard for me to be brave about spices. I am the least adventuresome person on the planet (or so my kids tell me!) and it takes a lot for me to try new things. I have had my doctor write me a list of things that would be super good for me that SHE likes and I am just trying one a quarter. I can't use any spices that have aspertine (Sorry about the spelling) (the MSG food enhancer) because it causes me to have mini seizures. The only way I am making it through this "food trial and error" is to keep a list of the foods I've tried and how I've tried them. Maybe someday I will be less cautious about new foods and spices, but that probably won't be for another few years!

Hi Rhiko - Love your avatar - looks like one of the kitties at my house and also your bunny rabbit ticker. I have 2 pet bunnies. I may have to get that ticker myself.

Thank you. I love my cat! Her name is Neko (Google translate it to English ). Her name and mine are a portmanteau so I thought I should honour that and have her as my avatar

To respond to the rest of your message:
I've heard from a close friend, who is also my future mother-in-law (if my partner ever asks me the question! ), that a food needs to be eaten at least 20 times before we start to like it. I used to hate tomato and now it is manageable, the same with some onion dishes and foods I didn't like before.

I love the idea of the purée or roasted vegetables. I watch a lot of the food channel, namely Jaime Oliver and Nigella, and they give idea of how to mix foods that I may not like with things I do like, such as peppers and spices. Admittedly, I haven't tried any of their meals yet but I'm working up the courage to give them a go. I'll probably try some recipes in June/July when I'm on break from all university work!

The question is, of course, if it takes 20 times to like a food, how does one endure the first 19? LOL

This has worked for me with some things but I know other things just aren't meant to be. And I'm OK with that as long as I feel I have expanded the things I can eat to the point of being able to be healthy.

Take vegetables, for instance. I like more kinds of "rabbit food" than I used to. The thing is, I often prefer them raw. Raw carrots , leaf lettuces, spinach. Can't stand things overcooked and mushy and to me vegetables are refreshing in their natural state and strange cooked - except -

in Chinese food for some of the ones like broccoli that would be too gassy to eat a lot of in the raw state. Cabbage the same way. Or roasted as mentioned earlier. I even enjoyed some roasted Brussels sprouts.

So I do eat things I never would have dreamed in one regard. But it's like the more "exotic" the food on my sensory comfort continuum, the more particular I still am with how it is prepared.

I also have a difficult time with many mixtures of savory and sweet. Most of the time I prefer not to combine the two. For instance, some people put salt (and even pepper!) on canteloupe and watermelon. To me that is an abomination! Or at the very least I'm going why?!

The only thing where I truly enjoy a sweet/savory combo is barbecue - smoked meat with sauce. Mesquite or hickory, not too spicy or exotic or vinegary. (I don't like anything vinegary.)

Oh goodness, am I a picky eater. I've broadened my food horizons for the sake of health, but there was a time I wouldn't have touched a vegetable with a ten foot pole. Most of my pickiness stems from texture issues. I hate bananas because of the awful squishiness, & cooked carrots gross me out. I like my carrots raw & crunchy. I'm just now getting to where I can tolerate avocados, all mushy & green. And I'm fairly certain I will never be able to bite down on a piece of onion, no matter how it is or isn't cooked, and not gag at the texture.

I recently started eating broccoli, beans, sweet potatoes, avocados, salad greens other than iceberg lettuce, & quinoa. I don't just eat them willy-nilly though, they have to be cooked/prepared just so.

@Skinnyminnie: I have ADHD, too, & I find that I can be overstimulated very easily when there's too much going on, too many sounds, etc. For instance, I was over at a friend's house one night with a bunch of other people. Some of us were playing a board game, some were watching tv in the same room, some were talking loudly nearby. It got hot & stuffy after a while & it was all I could do to not run screaming out of the house. Just wanted to say "I feel ya"